The present invention relates to improved communication systems and, more particularly, to managing multiple communications with a user communication device.
Traditional telephone systems, such as a public switched telephone networks (PSTN), have telephone switching systems which provide numerous services beyond plain old telephone service (POTS). These features include, for example, call hold, call waiting, caller ID, three-way calling, etc. However, a number of features are not yet available for PSTN telephony and the PSTN is limited in bandwidth.
Due to the bandwidth limitations of plain old telephone service (POTS), there is an inherent inability to efficiently integrate multiple types of media such as telephony, data communication for personal computers (PC), and television (TV) broadcasts. As a result, there is presently great effort toward creating various broadband communication networks that integrate telephony and other communication media. For example, new broadband architectures are developing which transmit voice, data, and multimedia (video and audio) communications using, for example, communication information packets. These communication packets may be constructed in one or more packet protocols such as Internet Protocol (IP) or Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM). In general, the type of customer services and feature/function capability that may be implemented in a PSTN is somewhat limited relative to a broadband communication system so a wide range of features/functions are presently being developed for broadband communication systems.
Users of communication devices require more features/functions to make communications more efficient and effective. One such new feature/function to improve communications is provided by the present application for managing multiple communications with a user communication device. For example, a user would benefit from being able to monitor a first communication session on hold while being involved in a second communication session. Further, a user will benefit from being prompted as to the status of a communication session on hold.
The present invention enables a party which is placed on hold in a first communication session to enter a second communication session and continue to monitor the status of the first communication. For example, in a broadband communication system telephone call or multimedia call, two parties may be in an active communication session with one another and a first of the two parties to the call may receive another incoming call. The first party then places the second party on hold. At this time the second party may wish to place the communication session with the first party on hold to initiate another communication session with a third party. However, the second party would also like to know when the first party takes the communication session off hold so that they can resume their communication. As a result, the second party places the communication on xe2x80x9cmonitorxe2x80x9d hold. While the communication is on monitor hold, the second party is able to monitor the on hold communication session to recognize when the first party returns. For example, the monitored call on hold may be maintained at a reduced volume or a video display of the video in a multimedia communication session may be displayed in a reduced window size on a display.
Further, the present invention may provide prompts to various parties of a communication session when one or more parties to the communication session are placed on hold or taken off hold. For example, the system may generate a prompt to one or more parties when a communication session is placed on hold or monitor hold, or when a communication session on hold or monitor hold is taken off hold.